The Invisible Woman
The Invisible Woman
NR | 28 December 1940 (USA)
Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream thousands of hit movies and TV shows

Start 30-day Free Trial
The Invisible Woman Trailers View All

Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.

Reviews
Cubussoli

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

View More
Claysaba

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

ShangLuda

Admirable film.

Cleveronix

A different way of telling a story

Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW)

H.G. Wells is well known for his novel of "The Invisible Man". Well, his credit was due when they decided to make "The Invisible Woman." Rather than having a female scientist, a former model was the guinea pig for a very dotty professor who has created a machine that renders the individual invisible. The model was a success, and she uses the feat to get even on her employer. But the machine caught the attention of seedy characters. They get the machine, but don't know how to work it. Virginia Bruce plays Kitty, and is very sexy in her role. John Barrymore plays the professor. Margaret Hamilton plays the professor's assistant who was well known a year earlier in "The Wizard of Oz". And one star that I remembered the best is Stooge Shemp Howard. I think that the movie would be best with the other two. Even without Moe and Larry, it was still a funny movie. But they would decline being villains. Sci-fi comedy at its best here. 3.5 out of 5 stars

View More
Michael_Elliott

The Invisible Woman (1940) *** (out of 4)Beautiful model Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce) answers an ad in a newspaper asking for a volunteer to become invisible. She's tired of being abused by her boss and would love the chance to stick it to him so she goes to Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore) and sure enough gets turned invisible.This was the first "invisible" film that Universal made since their 1933 masterpiece THE INVISIBLE MAN and I give them credit for trying something different. This really isn't a horror movie but instead it's a very fast and fun comedy that manages to have a terrific cast doing wonderful work and the special effects are also extremely good and especially when you consider they were made 75 years ago. The screenplay certainly doesn't try to do anything ground-breaking but it just goes for some nice jokes and gets them.THE INVISIBLE WOMAN's greatest strength is that it contains a terrific and perfectly charming cast. Bruce is simply delightful in her role and she shows an incredible talent by being able to charm it up even when she's not on screen. As with the 1933 film, the personality of the actor has to come through the voice since the majority of the time we can't see them and Bruce just keeps a smile on your face throughout. Barrymore turns in his final great performance as the nutty scientist and the comic timing the great actor brings is priceless. John Howard, Charles Ruggles and Margaret Hamilton are all very good too and we get a nice performance by Charles Lang and a role by Shemp Howard.As I said, the special effects are quite good for the period and the screenplay perfectly keeps the jokes flowing at a very good pace. A. Edward Sutherland does a very good job handling the material and he just brings a perfect mix of charm and laughs. THE INVISIBLE WOMAN isn't quite as good as the 1933 film but there's no question that it's the second best of the series.

View More
jokerswild1

The original Invisible Man film definitely had some humor, and though the film was mainly science fiction/horror, these humorous moments worked well as a garnish. This second "sequel" goes totally over the edge (even Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges fame is in it), nearing Abbott and Costello territory, though unlike their films with Universal, this isn't really funny. As there were in the previous films, there are still some impressive optical effects.At only one hour and thirteen minutes, I wouldn't quite say it's difficult to sit through, but if it was much longer it would be. There is one golden line amongst the vast majority of jokes that just fall flat, "Any girl that'd become invisible can't be very easy on the eyes."

View More
Scarecrow-88

Played strictly for laughs, I'm hard-pressed to label "The Invisible Woman" a horror film, but the movie does feature within the "The Invisible Man" Universal Studios franchise even if it stands alone from the first two films. A professor and friend to a rich family who have been providing funding to his experiments for years, Gibbs (John Barrymore), has finally hit pay dirt, having developed an "invisible machine". Miss Kitty Caroll (Virginia Bruce; receiving top billing, although she's barely visible during most of the running time, her voice depended on to earn giggles) answers an ad to be the human guinea pig to be turned invisible, her reason to frighten a grumpy, horrible boss for a modeling company (she is a model and one of his many victims; we see in the sequence where she uses her invisibility to scare him that he fires a girl because she has a cold!). Gibbs promises millions to broke playboy Richard Russell (John Howard) when the results of lots of money poured into his experiments proves successful. Sufficed to say, complications ensue. George (Charlie Ruggles), the butler, is the main source of comedy, his slapstick, physical comedy, and dialogue always on the silly side... He often faints, and gets nervous very easily, stuttering and quivering like a ninny. With goofy mobsters (including Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame) after the invisibility (boss Oscar Homolka(William Castle's "Mr. Sardonicas") wants to become invisible so he can return to America, remaining a fugitive in Mexico), "The Invisible Woman" never remotely approaches horrifying, so you might as well place this as an invisibility comedy alongside "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" or "Memoirs of the Invisible Man". There are plenty of special effects featuring shenanigans involving Kitty (she gets drunk on Russell's well stocked booze when Gibbs and her go to Richard's hideaway hunting lodge, and we see the bottle pouring scotch into a glass while Kitty is invisible), such as a missing head while she is in dresses, a club bopping mobsters on the head (knocking them unconscious), and often foiling Homolka and his goons. Definitely inferior to the previous films which had a level of intensity in the storyline due to the progressing madness caused by remaining invisible (with an antidote hard to come by), "The Invisible Woman", nevertheless, has its fun moments thanks to a game cast playfully giving over to the kooky screenplay and dialogue.

View More